Yu Jinyoung’s art brings a fresh perspective in what can be a repetitive look at today’s society and instead investigates the invisibleness of people in the 21st century; you can literally see through Yu’s transparent life-size figurines. But not without picking up the message they convey; isolation, withdrawal, how we interact with one another and the way we present a “front” to it all.
An anonymous presence exists in Yu’s sculptures, one that impacts the individual, whether through the pressures of culture, to modern day acts such as social media; presenting one side publicly to another that’s concealed. Her work shows the restrictiveness and expectations on people, and when combined with her floral designs shows how we try to cover the uglier side of life, whilst also acting as a paradox to the figures’ emotions, and thereby emphasising a sort of desperate cry for help. The addition of props such as flowers, animals, and bags serve to act as a distraction to conceal what we as individuals, family units, etc try to hide e.g. loneliness, desperation, avoidance. But serve instead as sharply-mirrored contrasts.
Yu’s more recent work has further elaborated on the different emotions and feelings held within someone; from hiding behind one another; a multitude of faces in a model’s hair – a connotation of which could be all the different “faces” we hold and those we put on: The Disguised (2008); to family appearances and expectations of society. In the LIFE #6 (2017) what appears to be a family clings in the foetal position to the one carrying them – the pressure mounting on the individual to continue forward, with even the family cat wrapped around their foot. But look again, and it might just be the same person, with those clinging to them not family but their past selves, and with it they’re made to carry their regrets, wishes for the future, and expectations.
the LIFE #6, 2017, Yu Jinyoung. Choi & Choi Gallery
In each new exhibition the figures move to reflect the times of today; society, family, friends, inner-dialogue/scars and expressions. Serving to suggest a separation between one another in today’s climate and from oneself – what we present to the world might not be what we truly feel.
Using ultra-transparent PVC for the figurines’ bodies, Yu then uses mixed media for the faces, and occasionally hands, to contrast against this “weightlessness” of the bodies. The faces’ expressions literally carrying the weight of their emotions. For the mixed-media is solid and real, against the clear and intangible body that fades into the background – suggesting a wish to hide from the world.
Yu’s art holds a conveyance of beauty on many layers, from the figurines and their minimal – but well-placed colours that draws the eye – to the appeal of the “pretty” patterns and designs on their clothing and bodies. But it’s the meanings within them that really holds impact, as we’re left to see a connection to our own lives, Yu Jinyoung’s art carrying with It a universal resonance, and one that empathetically links to our own.
